You should never buy CIC Navigation Systems from non-professional s (Ebay, Amazon, amateurs, etc.). Scroll below to read why! This important information will save you time and money, and most importantly, will you give you peace of mind!

1. Software:
When you buy from unknown and untrusted sources, you can never know what’s inside of the system. The software is often outdated and unsupported. A system with outdated software will give you limited functionalities, and it may cause compatibility issues with your vehicle. It will cost you additional money, to do the software upgrade, and most dealers will never do this type of work for you!

2. Hardware: When you buy from unknown and untrusted sources, you never know whether the equipment has been tested. You may be getting equipment that is not functioning properly or is not functioning at all! The seller does not provide warranty, and you may be stuck with equipment that is not good for anyone, except your nearest electronics recycling shop!
Moreover, the equipment may be damaged (with water for example) and if you install the equipment that has been flooded, into your vehicle, your vehicle may become damaged as well. We have been made aware of situations, when the vehicle’s electrical system was short circuited after one of such installations. As a result, vehicle owner lost his BMW warranty.

3. Remote coding Never trust amateurs with coding your vehicle! In almost every case, when a vehicle is coded by non-professionals, BMW Dealer will refuse to retain the guarantee of your vehicle, because non-professionals have tempered with the vehicle’s electrical and/or software system. If this happens to you, you will be stuck with a $50,000+ vehicle with NO MANUFACTURER’s WARRANTY. And knowing how expensive repairs and maintenance can be, this is not the situation, in which you would want to find yourself.
In other instances, when a vehicle is coded by amateurs, your vehicle may become stationary, meaning it will be impossible to start the vehicle and drive it away, because the coding has been performed incorrectly. In these situations, the vehicle will need to be towed to dealership, which will be able to identify and eliminate the errors, and …. possibly remove your warranty. Not all dealers will perform this type of job to fix your vehicle after amateur’s coding! Those who will, will charge you a high price for the coding.

4. Shipping and cosmetic condition of the products More often than not, non-professionals do not properly prepare the products for shipping, and they arrive damaged. In addition, you do not have visibility of the products that you buy - the products can be scratched, rusted, cracked. If you are lucky, the seller will provide a replacement, but because usually the seller provides no guarantee, you will have wasted the money on the product that you cannot use or that is not aesthetically pleasing.
At Bimmer Retrofit, we have an established and trusted supply chain, that selects and supplies only the best after-market systems for our customers and we always take special care when preparing products for shipping to ensure that they arrive safely and are not damaged during shipping.

It is up to decide who you will buy your CIC Navigation System from, but we hope that this information will help you understand the total cost of ownership of your Navigation System and vehicle and will help you make an informed decision, so that you can be in control of your financial situation!

It is possible to change to another language later on, but it cannot be done remotely. You will need to ship us back the CIC and we will do language conversion here.

One important thing to keep in mind: if you are considering to change the language to one of the Asian languages, you will LOSE US maps. For all other languages, language conversion will be ok.

Just an FYI
We can also pre-code your CIC with up to THREE (3) European languages, and you can easily switch between them. This is a much better solution, if you know in advance which languages you want.

Is there a place that describes in detail the functionality that comes with the upgrade from CCC to CiC?

Thanks,
Justin Wade

Here is some information for you:

The Car Information Computer (CIC) continues the path laid out by the earlier CCC
system and takes it to the next level of development. The main noticeable feature of this
iDrive system is the newly designed controller that is now equipped with seven direct
access buttons. These buttons provide shortcuts to the menus in the redesigned layout
of the user interface.

Compared to the CCC system, the number of CD/DVD drives in the CIC has been
reduced to one optical drive.
The CIC overall screen dimensions have remained the same. However, the number of
pixels have doubled from 640x240 (CCC) to 1280x480. This provides improved visual
quality by generating a sharper graphic display.

The navigation system display has been enhanced with the following functions:
• Full screen mode
• Night view
• 3D models in the perspective map view

The use of an integrated HDD (hard disk drive) now allows navigation map data to be
saved on the CIC hard disk. Previously, this map data had to be loaded from a navigation
DVD for each destination entry. Maps can also be displayed much faster due to the
increased processing power of the CIC.

The hard disk drive in the CIC also makes it possible to compile and store a personalized
music collection. An 8GB section of the total 80GB hard disk is dedicated to store music
files.
These files can be transferred from audio CDs, MP3 players or USB sticks. Along with
the music data files, the music track database (Gracenote®) is also stored to be used for
the music search function.

An address database has been included in the "Contacts" menu, which can also be
accessed from the Telephone and Navigation menus. This feature offers a single
“location” for accessing contact information. The information contained is more
comprehensive than before.

Many external receiver hardware devices such as IBOC and GPS are integrated
in the CIC. This adds flexibility and expands the system’s functions.